The Waterway Ferry makes it way to the dock near the Ossining Metro North station in Ossining May 21, 2008. ( Ricky Flores / The Journal News ) / Staff TJN

Written by

HAVERSTRAW — Patricia Gabriel has been using the Haverstraw-Ossining ferry for eight years and sees no better way to get to her job in Manhattan.

“I think it’s one of the most convenient ways into the city,” said Gabriel, a nurse practitioner who rides the ferry to Metro-North Railroad’s station in Ossining three days a week. “You’re not sitting in traffic on the bridge and it’s always on time.”

The New City woman will be able to keep taking the 15-minute jaunt across the Hudson for at least a few more years, as the ferry service’s funding was recently completed. The federal money — $4.3 million for 2013 and 2014 — comes through the state Department of Transportation, which provides it to Metro-North.

The money covers the service’s operating costs with NY Waterway, but also the lease of the property and other expenses such as insurance and maintenance of its parking lot at Dr. Girling Drive in Haverstraw village, said Dan O’Connell, Metro-North’s director of operations planning and analysis.

The 12-year-old service provides 500 rides a day, the equivalent of 250 commuters, the majority of whom use it to get to Grand Central Terminal. That’s a 14 percent increase, or 30 extra riders each day, from two years ago. Daily ridership peaked at 275 riders in 2008.

“We all took a down-slide after the ’08 recession, but things are starting to come back,” O’Connell said. “I think it’s the improving economy.”

The ferry is timed to meet trains, mostly express, departing or arriving in Ossining. The ferry has six runs in the morning, from 5:53 to 8:42 a.m., and nine evening trips, leaving Westchester as early as 4:46 p.m. and as late as 9:29 p.m.

NY Waterway spokesman Pat Smith said the service has proved to be a dependable and affordable alternative to driving to the city.

Even those few weeks when ice in Ossining Cove may ground the ferries, NY Waterway provides shuttle-bus service to and from Metro-North’s station in Tarrytown.

“For 48 weeks of the year, it is absolute on-time reliability,” Smith said.

(Page 2 of 2)

The monthly ferry UniTicket costs $36 (plus rail fare) but is going up to $39 on March 1. The one-way fare will increase from $3.50 to $3.75.

The ferry’sHaverstraw facility will soon be getting a much-needed face-lift.

Superstorm Sandy damaged the waiting area, ticket booth, and sections of the walkway and parking lot.

“We have to attend to this damage, which we’re assessing now,” said O’Connell.

The agency plans on requesting FEMA money for the repairs, O’Connell said.

Metro-North also intends to replace the dock in the spring. The work will cost “several hundred thousand dollars,” O’Connell said, and the federal money to pay for it has already been placed in a discretionary fund.

“It’s time to redo it,” he said of the dock. “Its life cycle is over.”

Rockland Public Transportation Commissioner Thomas Vanderbeek said the county has asked the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Metro-North’s parent agency, to add midday and later evening ferry service as a “way to bridge the value gap” — that is, the difference between what county residents pay in taxes and fees compared to what they receive in MTA services and allocations.

An analysis released earlier this year placed the value gap at $40 million in 2010.

O’Connell said all of the funding the agency received for the ferry would be used to fund the commuter service.

The county and Metro-North may find common ground if congestion becomes a major hardship during construction of the new Tappan Zee Bridge, which is expected to begin next year and last through 2018.

At that point, both agreed, expanding ferry service from Rockland could become a distinct possibility.